“Earth’s crammed with heaven”…Elizabeth Barrett Browning

So slow down, stop. Look. Take off your shoes…for holy is all around.

Risk getting burned, looking foolish, being wrong.  Drop what you are doing and turn aside, to look into every bush, every face, every event of your life—the big and the small, the hoped for and the feared, the bad and the good—look into every one of them for God’s presence and call.  Believe that whatever is going on, God is in it, and can be trusted.

Then, finally, if you are stilling willing, go the last step.  Once you have gotten the knack of seeing ‘burning bushes’ everywhere, consent to be set on fire yourself, to be for someone else the presence and call of God.  Like Moses without his veil, go ahead and frighten people with your shining face,so full of uncommon light, so alive with unimagined possibility that sometimes the fire scares even you.  It may or may not hurt, but we will not be consumed, and we will not be alone.  I AM THAT I AM is with us…will be with you—has been, will be forever, world without end.

It all belongs….

Savor Life.  Savor Relationships.

“Full” by definition is being completely filled; containing all that can be held, filled to utmost capacity.  I would even go so far to add that full by definition means full to “overflowing”…

Overflow by definition is to flow over, flood, inundate.  (Those of you reading this who live in the Nashville area know what it means when something overflows…as we witnessed during the historic May flood this year.)

For me, these two words, (overflow and full) have been hiding in my heart for a few months now as I had been planning Gracepointe’s first “Night of Worship”.  And as we came together Sunday evening, corporately worshipping the Lord, these two words did not disappoint. I literally felt the fullness and overflow of worship in its purest form.  It filled the room to capacity.  The sweet fullness that only comes when we, corporately, truly recognize the Spirit and then together praise and exalt HIM.  From the first word spoken our hearts were united.  Hearts that had a great anticipation and that were quietly listening for the Spirit.  It was worshipping in Spirit and in Truth…

William Temple says, “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination with the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God.”

Augustine says, “a Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot.”

Walt Whitman said, “After the seas are all crossed (as they seem already crossed), after the great captains and engineers have accomplished their work, after the noble inventors – after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist, FINALLY shall come the Poet.  Worthy that name.  The true son of God shall come, singing His songs.”

As we started the service Sunday night, you began joining us on the Hallelujah in “Our great God!” Then you continued to sing with full hearts and voices on “Marvelous Light”, “Sing to the King”, “Mighty Fortress”, and “Forever Reign”.  You listened and I pray you were reminded of God’s provision and comfort in “But Thou Oh Lord”. You sang joyfully on “Standing on the Promises” medley and listened and reflected during “I Will Praise Him.”  We all listened with expectancy for the day we will be united with Christ during “Glory”.  We watched as the video of a modern interpretation of the woman at the well’s story and knew it was our story as well.  We listened as God’s beauty and voice rang out clearly through the cello in one of the most intimate moments of the night. We listened and were all deeply moved by the reminder that “You are on our side”.  We opened our hearts to know that “our” included everyone, beginning with us, to the widow, orphan, wounded, poor, thief and whore.  We responded to Jesus individually.  We thought about the picture of Jesus sitting at the table of our hearts and inviting us to live life together. Then we responded during “Like Incense/Step by Step”  singing and proclaiming “Oh God You are MY God and I will ever praise You!”  Most meaningful and surprising to me was during the section of that song when we sang the oh’s – no lyric needed.  The room was full of people singing their song of praise with their hearts and mouths and hands uplifted.  Sometimes you don’t need a lyric because there are not enough words to articulate the overflow of your heart.  That was the moment.  We proclaimed His mystery in “Greatness of our God” and the assurance of His presence in “Never Let Go”  Finally we joined with what seemed all the angels, the saints who have gone before, the 2000 year old church, and the room to give the benediction of “How Great Thou Art”.  INDEED HE IS.

There is something special about not just being a part of such an amazing night – but to really know the people there with whom you shared such an amazing night with and therefore that made us not just “parts” but a whole.  To know the stories of triumph, pain, loneliness, cancer, job loss, hurts and trials.  To know these lives – full of brokenness and desire for more.  To know we are corporately choosing to lift up our heads, our voices, and our hearts together to God.  In doing so, we were all cohesively lifted.  I’m sure my heart will float back down and my life will dip a little below full eventually but that is why God gives us opportunities like last night.  I am thankful to ALL who made Sunday night what it was.  What a beautiful, corporate effort.  It can best be described with one word; FULL.

This is where I am. I believe the church for far too long has stood in the way of Jesus and crowded out his message of love with our own message of judgement and condemnation. The Church, or a lot of the church, myself included, at times have worried so much about pointing out sin, pointing out people, pointing out groups that we have decided are wrong and we have forgotten that we are supposed to be pointing all to Jesus. A friend reminded me about the story of Zacchaeus and if you remember he couldn’t get to Jesus. The crowd was in the way so he went and found a tree to climb up in to finally see Jesus. So, what if instead of the church being the crowd that is keeping people from seeing the beauty of who God is, we actually try and be the tree. Lifting up people to see Jesus. I believe His message, the good news, is LOVE. I have decided to leave judgement and other’s eternity in God’s loving, merciful, and gracious hands. I trust those hands with my life and this world. I heard someone say yesterday and I love this, “if we as Christians were going to err on the side of anything, why don’t we err on the side of love.”

Well there is so much to tell you.  Haven Faith was born on June 9th at 5:44pm.  She weighed 7 pounds and 7 ounces.  She is just perfect, I promise.  I am at home today Thursday June 18th still recovering from the c-section and sleep deprivation:)  But life is still good… I think you live off of adrenaline, euphoria, etc… for a few days and then the craziness sets in.  Although we have had a few hard nights then good still out weighs the bad.  I think if we pay attention to life, pretty much the good will always out weigh the bad.  I promise.  Well I will be back soon and give you a longer post.  I promise to get better at updating sooner!  Keep us in your prayers these next few weeks.  Blessings on your lives, Mel ]]> http://melissagreenemusic.com/life-is-good/feed/ 0 http://melissagreenemusic.com/changes/ http://melissagreenemusic.com/changes/#comments Fri, 15 May 2009 15:05:19 +0000 melissa http://melissagreenemusic.com/site/?p=155 Well friends, it is high time I write to you and fill you in on all the amazing changes going on in my life.  

Change by definition (verb) : to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of something different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone